Cruising in Iowa

Iowa gets filed under corn, not boats, a mistake the state's boaters are happy to let stand. Two of North America's great rivers frame it: the Mississippi along the east, the Missouri on the west, hundreds of miles of navigable water between them. In the northwest sit the Iowa Great Lakes, real glacial lakes with real depth, plus a handful of big man-made reservoirs scattered through the middle of the state. That mix (quiet lake water one weekend, working-river navigation the next), is what makes boating here more interesting than the map suggests, and a network of marinas and service providers backs it up.

The Mississippi corridor is the marquee run. Historic river towns line Iowa's eastern edge (Dubuque, Clinton, Burlington), each with maintained marinas, fuel docks, and places to tie up for the night. Getting between them means transiting locks and dams, which is half the appeal: you're moving through the river's working history, and each lock opens onto a broad pool of cruising, fishing, and watersports water. For multi-day trips and charters, the big river is hard to beat this far inland.